Climate Change Activists Join Occupy Wall Street Protests

Occupy Wall Street started last month with a handful of protestors speaking out against the political and financial system they believe has ignored them, but it’s now turned into a national movement, with protests taking place across the country.

Following the Keystone XL pipeline protests in Washington, climate change activists have joined the Occupy Wall Street protestors, speaking out against corporations’ lack of concern for their impact on the environment.

“For too long, Wall Street has been occupying the offices of our government, and the cloakrooms of our legislatures,” wrote Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org. “They’ve been a constant presence, rewarded not with pepper spray in the face but with yet more loopholes and tax breaks and subsidies and contracts. You could even say Wall Street’s been occupying our atmosphere, since any attempt to do anything about climate change always run afoul of the biggest corporations on the planet. So it’s a damned good thing the tables have turned.”

Along with 350.org, groups of youth and environmental activists, led by the Energy Action Coalition, have been holding “sleep-ins” at the U.S. Department of State to protest the Keystone XL pipeline.

Supporters of the climate change movement are only a small part of the many voices camped along the street in New York who are concerned about political and financial inequality in the U.S. However, the impact of corporations and their role in climate change is becoming yet another significant concern in the Occupy Wall Street protests.